On democratic concerns and legal traditions. The Dutch 1953 and 1956 constitutional reforms ‘towards’ Europe

This study analyses the 1953 and 1956 Dutch constitutional reforms ‘towards’ Europe, revealing the complexity and mutuality between national constitutional reform and the development of European integration in the 1950s. It demonstrates that long-standing Dutch traditions of adherence to international law played a formative role in constitutional reform, which itself ultimately facilitated the transformation of European law. Thus, it challenges the understanding of this development of European law as merely a constitutional or administrative process, arguing for the inclusion of national constitutional legal traditions in the writing of the history of European law.